The Last
by Princess Pinky
Summary: River asks if there are others like them.


**A/N:** I wrote this a very long time ago, but I never posted it to FFN. Sorry about the length or lack thereof, it's only a ficlet.

_**The Last**_

Puffs of warmth escaped the edge of the covers as she rolled beneath them, draping her arm across a skinny bare chest. It was so strange to see him without his bowtie. Her fingertips found his jaw line. "Doctor?" When he didn't stir, she leaned in close, allowing her blonde ringlets to envelope his face as her lips met his. _"Sweetie,"_ she tried again.

"River," he murmured.

River smiled. She loved the way he said her name: _Riv-ah_. It was like a breath and a gasp at the same time. "I have a question," she explained, laying her head onto his chest. The rhythm of his twin hearts echoed in her ears. She thought of her own heart, just one, like her human parents. But everything else was like him; she could do everything he could do. Sometimes more. "Are there others?"

"Others?" he whispered, still in the stupor of sleep.

"Others," she repeated. "Like us. _Time Lords._" It was the first time she'd ever brought it up. She knew of the Time War, it was in the history books. She hadn't received her doctorate without knowing learning about it. A part of her feared his response, especially when his skin flinched beneath hers. But she knew she had to ask, it had been building in her bones since she agreed to travel with him. If she could exist, then surely the possibility was at least open. The history books couldn't know everything.

The Doctor wriggled his arms out of the covers, rustling alternating warm and cool currents of air around their exposed skin. His elbows dug into the mattress and he pushed himself against the headboard, his back lying comfortably on his pillow. Then his arms wound around River, over her breasts and up around her back, latching behind her spine. He pulled her up to him and tangled his lanky fingers into her blonde spirals.

River gauged him. Those eyes. Those old eyes were still, but she knew _everything_ was going on behind them. His mind worked like a super computer. She knew this to be absolute, because hers worked the same way. He was thinking, pulling up every file, every Time Lord, every Time Lady, wanting to give her the answer she desired. It was a long time for a simple yes or no. But then, it was never just that simple, was it?

"Donna."

River's head bounced up. She didn't know what she'd been expecting, but it certainly hadn't been a name. "Donna?" she queried.

"Donna Noble. She's…_like_ you."

"Like me?"

"Not exactly. But enough. Born human, but she's part Time Lady."

"And she's still alive?"

"Yes." Though something like death lingered in the way he said so. A sheen, a wayward sparkle, appeared in those old eyes. "She was the result of a human-Time Lord Meta-Crisis."

The term and process were familiar to her, but she couldn't process what he'd meant. "But – you said she was alive."

"She is. I had to wipe her memories. Every last one we shared since that first time she appeared on my TARDIS. Just so she'd live."

River sprang up, clutching the sheet to her chest. Her heart was beating like a streak of lightning. "You _erased_ her memories?" The disdain was impossible to keep out of her voice. There was a human saying: about death and life flashing before one's eyes. All of River's memories of The Doctor began to flash before her eyes. Without a second's thought, she raised her hand and brought it down fiercely against his cheek.

The Doctor touched his cheek, newly burned with River's imprint. His eyes closed once, just for a second, and reopened. The lashes were wet, not that anyone would notice. Could notice. Except for River. "I had to," he said, holding his ground. "Her mind would've burned."

"I bet she gladly would've burned than be stripped of the most precious thing she ever had!" River hissed. "_I_ would burn for that!" Somehow, she noticed, those words seemed to break him in a way that – for once – she couldn't comprehend. There was a single tear from his right eye, which he let escape in her presence, without trying to wipe away; he wore it like a battle scar. _"Leave."_

And he did.

When the door clicked shut, River fell back onto her own side of their bed. It had grown cold in her absence, but that didn't matter. She didn't allow herself to cry, at least, not often. That was not how weapons were raised. But just this once, she let hot tears fall from her face, soaking her pillow. She cried not for herself, but for this Donna Noble, the woman like her – part human, part Time Lady – who couldn't cry for herself and all that she had lost; the last of their kind.


End file.
